


new beginnings

by thewayofthetrashcompactor (BriarLily)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, But it turns out okay, Exile, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 08:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriarLily/pseuds/thewayofthetrashcompactor
Summary: Kylo and Rey find out that their Force bond is much stronger than they expected.She freezes. The pull she’s feeling isn’t coming from across the galaxy. She looks down at herself, heart beating so fast she thinks she might faint. The movement in the Force is coming from inside her, from the tiny life that’s developing in her womb. Her knees shake and she nearly slides to the floor.





	new beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> @kiss-me-kylo asked: “What about Rey finding out she is pregnant and Ben is the father?“ 
> 
> I don't do hurt without the comfort, but **TW** for discussion of miscarriage, abortion, and death, as well as pregnancy and childbirth. (Rey and Ben have a _lot_ of angst about family, but I promise, this isn't a tragedy.)
> 
> (Was originally posted as part of my ficlet collection, but decided to move it to its own spot as it's not really ficlet sized)

She’s with Leia in a meeting when she feels it for the first time. In her distraction, she thinks it’s the first stirrings of a connection through the Force bond, a familiar consciousness tugging at hers. She ignores it, hoping Ben will forgive her for not rushing to him this time. It’s an important meeting, as the Republic struggles to resurrect itself from the ashes of the war, and their bond has strengthened past those first years. They no longer need to wait for the whims of the Force to connect them, and she can reach out to Ben later. 

Still, she leaves the meeting as soon as she politely can, finding a secluded nook in an empty hallway. She frowns when she doesn’t see him nearby. The Force still pulls at her, like the bond’s still connected…

She freezes. The pull she’s feeling isn’t coming from across the galaxy. She looks down at herself, heart beating so fast she thinks she might faint. The movement in the Force is coming from inside her, from the tiny life that’s developing in her womb. Her knees shake and she nearly slides to the floor. 

“Rey?” Leia’s voice calls through the hall.

Breathing heavily, Rey straightens. “Coming!” She hurries to meet up with Leia, as if she can outrun the knowledge of what she’s just learned. 

Thankfully, it’s near the end of the day, but Leia still has a few more appointments scheduled that Rey follows her to. With each one, she feels slowly sicker. Now that she’s noticed the small signature, she can’t ignore it. Its presences wriggles at the back of her mind. Leia notices and cuts the last meeting off short, despite Rey’s protests. 

“You look like death,” she says bluntly, laying the back of her hand across Rey’s forehead. Rey flinches, thinking of mothers on Jakku dying with their children, unable to feed them both, or swollen bodies bleeding out on the sand. Leia frowns. “Do you feel cold?” Rey nods. It feels like the kind of cold that set in when she’d been out in the sun too long, that made her long for warmth even as the sun boiled the blood in her veins. 

Leia takes her back to their apartments and gently but firmly bustles Rey into bed. She pauses and frowns as she’s adding blankets on top of Rey, and Rey thinks that, for a moment, she senses the additional presence. But she shakes it off, likely thinking it’s the lingering sense of Ben that never quite leaves. She smoothes her hand over Rey’s forehead, brushing her hair back, and Rey’s heart aches.

Once Leia has left, and Rey hears her light footsteps retreating back to the main room, likely to get more work done, Rey sits up in bed, propping her back against the headboard. She bends her knees in front of her and curls her arms over her stomach, looking down at it in disbelief. It’s too early for her to see any signs, though if she looks with a very biased eye, maybe her stomach is slightly thicker than normal, maybe a little more tender. She tries to imagine herself with a full, rounded belly, and has to brace her head on her knees until she can breathe again.

She wonders how far along she actually is. Even with regular food and medical care, her body has never settled into a regular cycles. Jakku took its toll. She’s missed at least one month recently, maybe more than that, but she can’t be sure. She has an implant, but apparently that doesn’t matter to the Force.

She considers her choices. If this were a couple years ago, in the middle of the war, she thinks it might have been almost easy. On the run, constantly between battles, and body barely healed from Jakku: the thought of bringing a child into all that would have been unthinkable, if her body could even have withstood the strain. That she managed to conceive at all is a shock. Maybe she hadn’t been as up to date on her medicals as she should have been. She used to be half convinced that this was an impossibility in the first place, even if the doctor who had first examined her had said it might be possible someday, with time. 

Now… She curls her hand over her stomach. She’s made a family for herself in Leia, in Finn and Rose, in Ben, as far away as he is. Even if she’d thought about children, it felt inconceivable in the face of Ben’s exile. She doesn’t know what she’s doing and, more than anything, she doesn’t want to face this alone. Leia would help, she’s sure, and her friends would be as supportive as they could be from their own positions in the rebuilding effort. But something in her, possibly the child abandoned on Jakku, convinced that her parents would return for her, rebels at the thought of raising a child on the promise that their father was far away but still loved them, even though they could never meet. It’s not fair to Ben, or to their child.

She grabs a pillow from next to her and wraps her arms around it, staring sightlessly across the room. She doesn’t think she’s ever regretted Ben’s exile more. When the sentence had come down, it had seemed like the best possible outcome. Braced as she’d been for the announcement of his execution, it was almost a relief. They still had the Force bond, at least, and this way there was at least hope. Now, as she faces the possibility of bringing a child into the world without him, she’s never hated the council more. Them, Snoke, the soldiers that left him there - everything that took him away from her. Her eyes prick with tears and she buries her face in the pillow. 

She’s suspected before that the Force has a sense of timing about when it connects them, and sure enough, as if summoned by her thoughts, Ben’s presence materializes across the room. 

“Rey?” he says, worry clear in his voice. He takes a few quick steps to her bed and kneels down next to her. “Rey?” She wants to talk to him, but her throat sticks, and she’s not sure she can handle the sight of his concerned face. “What’s wrong?” he asks quietly, and his hand smoothes over her hair. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

Rey looks up at him, face red and tear-stained, and she only feels worse at the worried shock in Ben’s features. He looks around and pulls up what must be a chair on his end, then sits and wraps his arms around her. His hand strokes over her hair and down her back as he waits for her to gather herself. His soothing motions tear her between relaxing into him and anxiety over what she has to tell him. She tries several times to say something, but the words won’t come. He simply holds her, rocking slightly back and forth. 

“Do you feel it?” she finally says, voice barely a whisper. 

“Feel what?” Steeling herself with a deep breath, she takes his hand and places it over her stomach. His eyes widen in shock. “Are you - ? But - “ She just looks at him. He closes his eyes and she feels him reaching out in the Force, the strength of his presence washing over him. He stops when he reaches the small signature in her womb. His every muscle freezes around her. “Rey,” he breathes. He opens his eyes and looks at her stomach with mingled terror and excitement. “How?”

She shakes her head. “The Force,” she says weakly, with a humorless smile. She shifts uncomfortably with his gaze still fixed to her midsection, and he jerks his eyes up to her face. 

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” His arms tighten around her. “I don’t want to do this without you.” He swallows, hard. 

“I don’t want you to do this without me either,” he admits. “I couldn’t...I can’t not be there for my child. I couldn’t take it.”

She nods. It’s no more than she expected. They sit together, both lost in their own thoughts. “We could talk to Leia,” she says, not letting herself fully face what she’s suggesting.

He shakes his head. “You know there’s no way to appeal this. They’ll never let me off this planet.” His tone is as if he’s explaining this to her, and she feels a stab of annoyance. 

“I know,” she snaps. She’s very familiar with all the details of his sentencing. He winces and sends a wave of apology over the bond. She strokes his hand in acceptance, then hesitates before saying what she was thinking. “What if I came to you though?”

His arms tighten around her. “Rey, no.” She’s about to protest, but he cuts her off. “You can’t...throw your life away like that. You have so much you can do in the galaxy; you don’t deserve to be stuck here with me, paying for my mistakes.”

She turns in his arms to face him. “I can choose however I want to throw my life away, thank you very much, Ben Solo. And if I want to waste it by raising our child on some outer rim back world with you, then I kriffing will.” His eyes widen. 

His hand drifts to pass over her stomach, barely touching. “Do you...want this, then?” She deflates, considering. For a moment, she’d seen them living together, the three of them, and she’d wanted it fiercely. But the reality is much more complicated. 

“I’m scared,” she admits. She has Leia and doesn’t have to hoard bacta like it’s more precious than water now, but it’s difficult to leave behind the lingering horrors she’s seen, and to remember that pregnancy now need not be the death sentence it often was on Jakku. And even beyond that is the terror of bringing a child into the world, to be a parent after she suffered so much for the mistakes of her own. She knows she would never abandon her child, but how could she possibly be trusted to take care of one when she never learned how? She can feel Ben’s own anxieties rushing through his mind on the other end of the bond, his fear that his family is doomed, that any child of his will suffer the same pull towards the dark, that he’ll be unable to protect them, just as his parents couldn’t protect him. 

“I know,” he says. _I am too_ , he leaves unspoken, but she feels it. He sighs. “If you could come out here, you know I’d love nothing more in the universe than to be near you again. But the last thing I want is for you to feel stuck.” She nods. She understands what he means, even if she doesn’t agree. “And they chose this planet for a reason; this isn’t an easy place to live. You’d be used to the summers, but the winters are brutal. You and our child both deserve better than this.”

She’d argue him that she deserves what she wants, which is him, but the addition of a child is a whole different matter. Could she condemn their child to a world they might never be able to leave, to a galaxy that despises the very idea of them? That Kylo Ren wasn’t killed with the rest of the First Order generals is considered by many to be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the galaxy, despite the fact that his defection was the only thing that saved the Resistance from being eliminated completely. Leia faces the punishment for the mistakes of her family every day, and Rey sees how it wears on her. To put that on a child, her child…’

Theoretically, she could have the child here, raise them with Leia’s help, and let the father go unremarked. It would kill Ben, but he’d understand. Any resemblance to the last Supreme Leader would be waved away as an impossibility. Ben has been exiled for over a year, and his planet is carefully monitored, not to mention that Rey remains frequently in the public’s eye. Rey’s child would be revered as an heir to her legacy as the last Jedi, though regarded with as much suspicion and misunderstandings as she is, but they wouldn’t face the hatred that Ben does. 

Even as she considers it, the sense of wrongness is overwhelming. It feels like a betrayal. Ben doesn’t deserve any more rejection, least of all from her.

What she really wants is for her and Ben to be having this conversation on a green planet, in a home they’d made together. They’d still be scared, but happy too. Could have felt like this was a challenge they could face together. If so many things had been different. But she’s learned the hard way that she can’t waste time dwelling on ‘what-ifs’. Waiting too long will just make the situation worse, one way or another. 

“We need to talk to Leia,” she says, resting her chin on his arm. He tenses, but nods. 

“We’ll figure something out,” he promises. Hope doesn’t come naturally to him, but she can feel him trying, and her chest swells in appreciation. Carefully, she rests her hand on her stomach. It still feels weird, and uncomfortable, but she thinks she might be able to adjust. Ben wraps his arms around her shoulders and kisses her neck, gently. 

“We will,” she agrees.

-

Explaining everything to Leia is easier than Rey expects. Ben stays with her through the bond, staying close but quiet. Leia nods when Rey admits her condition, with little sign of surprise, and Rey remembers again that Ben’s mother is more Force-sensitive than she lets on. They’ve explained the Force bond to her before, Ben’s defection and the information he needed to pass on before he left impossible to fully understand without it. Wordlessly, she hugs Rey, and Rey lets herself relax into her arms. After a moment, Leia pulls back and directs them to the couch. 

“Come here, sit down,” she says gently. Rey follows her. “First things first.” Leia looks at her seriously. “Are you keeping it?” Rey knows her, knows the signs that she’s doing her best to keep her expression carefully neutral. She’s sure the older woman has told herself that she won’t let them be influenced by her opinion either way.

Rey looks down. She’s more terrified than she knows how to say, and has no idea how they can make this all work out. She doesn’t know if she can be a good mother, or if she’ll be able to handle the pregnancy. She wishes the timing was better, or the situation was, or any of a thousand things that make this so much harder than she wants it to be. But through it all, she has the image of her and Ben and their child together, of starting a family of their own, through all of the struggles. Without looking, she can feel Ben beside her, ready to accept and help her with whatever she decides. “I want to try,” she whispers.

“Okay.” Leia takes Rey’s hands in hers, and Rey looks up to meet her eyes. “We’ll figure something out,” she says, unknowingly echoing her son. Rey’s eyes fill with tears. “Oh, honey.” Leia pulls her back into a hug. Ben stands behind her, resting his hand on her shoulder in silent support. 

“I had plans,” Leia murmurs, gazing distantly over Rey’s shoulder. “Maybe in a couple years, I was hoping to be able to get him visiting privileges, after some of the anger died down. Even if it was just welfare checks. I know it wasn’t enough, but...it was something.” She pulls back to look at Rey and gives her a half-smile, laughing humorlessly at herself and the universe. “It looks like the Force disagreed.”

Rey smiles back with the same fatalistic acceptance. The grief she feels isn’t only her own, but also leaks through the bond, and from the woman in front of her. Leia does her best to keep her energy up despite her age and the toll the years have taken on her, throughout two wars and the loss of so much, so many. But there are times, like now, when Rey sees the tired old woman, who’d like nothing more than for the universe to let her rest.

Leia takes a deep breath and draws herself together. “First thing, you need to start seeing a doctor. We can take you tomorrow, and we’ll probably need a droid to stay here.” Rey winces, but nods. She’s never fully gotten used to being poked and prodded by droids or humans, and isn’t looking forward to the kind of invasive examinations this is likely going to require, but she knows it’s necessary. “Do you know how far along you are?” Rey shakes her head. “Okay, we’ll figure that out tomorrow.”

Leia’s direct approach helps Rey to focus, overcoming some of the instinctual panic. She gives Rey the basics of what she can expect from the pregnancy, and what they need to prepare. As complicated as they are, the biological aspects are the easy part. Once that’s through, Leia hesitates, but then starts listing the steps of allowing Rey to get to Ben with just as much pragmatism. Rey feels Ben’s hand tense on her shoulder as she hangs on his mother’s every word.

Leia takes her hands again as she finishes, and meets Rey’s gaze with dark eyes that hold the weight of the galaxy. “This isn’t going to be easy, Rey, and I can’t promise anything, especially by the time the baby gets here. But I think we can negotiate you seeing him, one way or another. I will do my absolute best to make that happen, with whatever goodwill my name has left.”

Rey nods, eyes tearing again. She doesn’t know if it’s the stress of the situation, or the early onset of hormones, but she’s not looking forward to more of this. “I know. Thank you.”

Leia squeezes her hands. She breaks Rey’s gaze to look around, eyes landing just over her shoulder, about where Ben stands. “Is my son here?”

“Yes.” Rey rests her hand over Ben’s on her shoulder. 

Leia hesitates. “How is he?”

Rey looks up at Ben, who doesn’t meet her eyes. “Tell her I’m fine,” he says hoarsely. “And...thank her, from me, for this.”

Rey passes the message on to Leia, whose affected expression of resolution matches her son’s. “Good. Good.” She looks over at the datapad discarded on the table. “I should start sending messages out tonight so we can get going on this tomorrow. After all, we’re on a deadline now.” She half-smiles. 

“Okay.” Rey stands. After all of this, she wants to sleep, and soon, so she can take advantage of the bond to fall asleep with Ben curled around her. She turns to go back to her room.

“Rey.” Leia’s voice stops her and she turns back. Leia’s arms enfold her again. “Congratulations.” Rey’s breath catches in her throat. “You’ll be a wonderful mother.” Rey holds her tightly, and she thinks she feels wetness on her cheeks as her own eyes tear once again. 

-

Leia’s timeline for reuniting Rey and Ben turns out to be depressingly accurate. Months pass, and Rey slowly becomes more swollen and miserable, feeling ungainly and oversensitive and pumped full of who knows what kinds of supplements. Feeling the small presence inside of her grow is one of her few consolations, though she wishes almost every day that it could just be separate from her already. She’s gotten used to having Ben with her over the bond, but this is a new kind of invasion. She tells Ben this, on one of the nights when they sit together in bed, his hands cradling her gently, and he kisses her. 

“I wish they were too,” he says. “Soon, we’ll be able to hold them. Just a couple more months.” 

She looks back at him over her shoulder. “But you won’t be there.” She feels overwhelmingly sad again, then angry for feeling sad. They’d known that was unlikely when they started. Ben runs his hand up and down her arm soothingly, and she tries to center herself. She’s annoyed with having to deal with her mood swings; she can’t imagine how he feels. 

He kisses her again, likely feeling her self-depreciation over the bond. “I love you,” he reminds her, gently. 

“I love you too.” She twists to kiss him back, frustrated again by the constantly changing dimensions of her own body. He helps her adjust, and they settle again, foreheads resting against each other. 

-

Rey's pregnancy is a curiosity, but only those who need to know are allowed the identity of the father. Rey's impressed that it doesn't manage to leak out, as these secrets always do, and can only assume that Leia has threatened everyone involved within an inch of their lives. Rey appreciates it.

Still, despite Leia's best efforts in amassing all her contacts, Ben only attends the birth through the bond. He watches in fear as Rey screams throughout the night. When the baby is placed in Rey's arms, she holds it so that Ben can see. 

“She's beautiful,” he whispers. Rey nods, exhausted. The new parents stare wide-eyed at their child, dumbstruck in awe. 

-

It's not easy. And it's not quick. But finally, finally, Rey stands on a ship, looking down at Ben's planet. Her daughter is in her arms, whimpering slightly in her sleep as her mother clutches her. Leia comes up to Rey and lays a hand on her shoulder. 

“Are you ready?” Rey nods. Leia smiles at her. “Okay.” She leads Rey over to the smaller transport ship as she outlines the conditions that Rey already knows. She'll have a holonet connection, but it will be monitored. She has a comm if they need help, but there's no guarantee on how quickly a ship will arrive. She'll be allowed to leave for periodic visits, but she and her child will be thoroughly examined before permitted to embark or disembark a ship. Rey listens with half an ear, but her focus is all on the tight string between her and Ben, tighter than it's ever been. So close, almost there. 

Leia says her goodbye with a fierce hug for both Rey and her daughter, and watches as their transport takes off. Rey doesn't leave the window for the entire trip down, eyes locked on the planet below, even when the it's blocked from site.

They land and the ramp lowers, and Rey stumbles out. For a moment she thinks that there's been a mistake, that they've landed on the wrong side of the planet, and then Ben emerges from behind one of the enormous trees. He runs to them and wraps them tightly in his arms, as if he'll never let go. But then the baby starts to fuss at being squished between them, and he pulls back, a slightly horrified look on his face. Rey adjusts her daughter in her arms awkwardly, cooing to try to calm her.

“Shhh, it's alright, it's your papa.” Ben looks even more stricken at that, and the fear comes back to Rey, that there are not two less qualified people in the universe to be doing this under worse circumstances, and what the kriffing hell had they been thinking, pretending they could make this work - 

And then Ben supports her arms with his, holding their child together, and meets the fear in her eyes with love. He leans over the baby and kisses her, starting light and then deepening. Rey laughs as they break apart, the sound watery. Their daughter fusses between them, the kind of noise that Rey quickly learned means she's building up to a good cry. 

“She needs to be fed,” Rey says. “Or changed, I don't know - “

Carefully, Ben turns so his arm wraps around her waist, one hand still on the baby, and leads them to a small cabin she can see through the trees. She senses his panic through his veneer of calm, and feels like laughing again. His hand squeezes her hip. 

“It'll be okay,” he tells her, trying to reassure them both. “You're here. We'll figure it out.” And somehow, Rey believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a struggle for me to write, so I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts! You can also find this on [tumblr](http://thewayofthetrashcompactor.tumblr.com/post/174035253603/new-beginnings).


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